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Konami Live! and Net Jet games recovered

prototector

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Mar 2, 2020
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contrafan
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For anyone who might have some interest
We've recovered a bunch of Konami Live PC games that were only playable through their online server, which had shut down about a decade ago. A lot of work was put into bypassing the online check, as well as other poorly designed things like control/input restriction. The arcade games in these PC ports were later used as the base for the XBLA versions.

Little backstory:
Konami released 2 USB-based controllers to retail stores that contained Windows-based ports of some of their games. One controller was an arcade compilation (the XBLA port predecessors), the other was a Windows port of Frogger: Ancient Shadow. These controllers actually had absolutely no game data on them. Instead, they contained a key and executable that would connect to the Konami Live! server. From there, you would download the games and play them. The way the Frogger port was downloaded was a bit different, as it downloaded more of the game as you progressed more and more through it. Because of this, we're still hoping to recover the rest of the game through someone who might come forward who has beaten this version. Anyway, downloading the game wasn't enough: it still needed to connect to the server each time the games were launched to play.

Obviously, as a result, the server going down meant the games would no longer be playable. Another really atrocious design choice with these controllers is that they're not recognized as a gamepad/joystick when plugged in; instead, they're detected as a CD drive. This means you can't even at least use it with other games. Adding to that are other really bad ideas, like how finnicky it is to be detected by versions of Windows later than 7, and that the games lock out most your keyboard input when played out-of-the-box.

I had posted about this on Assemblergames when the site was still alive, about 6 years ago. Back then, it seemed hopeless because it was assumed the games were streamed, meaning there wasn't actually anything downloaded, but it turns out that wasn't the case.

Included in this archive are also several other, smaller flash games that used the same technology, sold with a different line of products from Hasbro called Net Jet.

Anyway, hope you enjoy
 
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Weinflames

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Mar 25, 2020
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Thank you for this! It’s great to be able to preserve something that seemed impossible to recover.
 

ItsMeMario

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I didnt even know Net Jet existed. Quite decent games and gamepaly for 2007 (Transformers, Super Soaker...)
 

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